Dec 11 2007

Flying Saucer Music #31

Rev. Stranges and me at this year’s Retro UFO conference. Photo by Adam Gorightly

Tomorrow, I’ll be a “guest DJ” on the excellent 365 Days music site at WFMU. My friend Otis Odder will be posting a couple of mp3s from my collection of Contactee music and audio. Way back at the beginning of this year, I posted an image from a 45 RPM record produced by the Rev. Frank Stranges, but the audio wasn’t included. Now, that will be available for download, as well as another weird artifact of contactee lore: the “One World Family” record from 1976.

For UFOmystic readers only, here’s a sneak preview of what I wrote for the post:

For many years, I have been a big fan of the “UFO Contactees,” who were ordinary Janes and Joes like you and me until they were called upon (so they claimed) by benevolent space travelers to spread the word of peace and nuclear disarmament to their fellow earthlings. From the early 1950s until the present day, these people have formed groups and cults that published books and newsletters, held conventions and vied for the hard-earned dollars of the believers. Fortunately for us, they also went into the studio from time to time to commit their philosophy to the eternal vinyl disc.

1966 saw Ken Kesey’s first “Acid Test” in San Francisco, John Lennon’s “We’re bigger than Jesus” comment, the founding of the Church of Satan, and Russia’s Venera 3, which became the first manmade object to reach another planet. It also marked the June premiere of Frank Stranges UFO documentary Phenomena 7.7 at Los Angeles’ Wilshire Ebell Theater. Stranges wrote many books on contact with space brothers, specifically his friend “Valiant Thor” who looked a bit like Klatuu from The Day The Earth Stood Still. This record appears to be an audio excerpt from the film. Stranges wisely kept the alien contact material out of this narration, opting to convince skeptical listeners that the UFO subject was real and deserved scientific scrutiny-an issue which is still going on, as is the Rev. Stranges. Stranges appeared in public for the first time in ages this year at the Retro UFO Conference in the California desert east of Los Angeles, where I finally met him.

Rev. (he is apparently ordained by some religious order) Stranges was delighted that I had a copy of the record, which he hadn’t seen in years. Since I had two, I asked if he wanted one. Unfortunately, he took the copy which was in better shape, but the recording you will hear was ripped from the cleaner one.

In 1947, Allen Michael was sitting in his truck in Long Beach when he was beamed up via “an ultraviolet light entwined with gold threads” where space brothers asked him to form a political party based on new age principles. It was not until 1954 that Michael had another contact, described at his website:

It was early one morning, as the sun was rising, and I was on my sundeck on top of my art studio in Long Beach, California. I looked up and a great round cloud was forming overhead. The telepathic Voice in my consciousness told me to follow the cloud to the desert and I would greet my space comrades.

Michael reports that he ended up at Giant Rock, site of the Interplanetary Spacecraft Conventions, which were hosted by flying saucer contactee George Van Tassel from 1954 until his death 23 years later. One wonders if the cloud turned into a “disc of fire” at night.

One year after Frank Stranges released his film, Allen Michael’s One World Family Commune was formed in San Francisco. In 1976, they went into the studio to record music based on Michael’s space age philosophy. Since it was the mid-1970s, the music was “white people funk.”

This is most evident on the first track “Share the World” which opens with a standard wah-wah guitar, and assures us that “We can all share the world/ It’s the grooviest thing.” The second track, “Sound,” is the standout. Michael riffs on the word in glorious echoplex, obviously delighted with studio effects and what was being done with his voice. “My words go forth to fulfill the things for which they are sent…Call forth those who travel on instant, weightless, timeless lightbeams of sound…SOUND…SOOUUNNDD!!” “Man and Woman” appears to be standard new age fare glorifying the roles of the sexes, accompanied by an inexplicable accordion intro and break. On “One World Bill of Rights,” Michael’s (or the Space People’s) words are read by a young woman. Perhaps Michael thought that people would be more apt to listen if a female voice read the new plan for a perfect society.

Enjoy and spread the word of the Space Brothers!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 12:01 am and is filed under Wake Up Down There, Pop Culture, Contactees, Music, UFOlogy. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.
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